Washington — Senate Republicans on Friday night began a marathon series of votes — known as a “vote-a-rama” — as Congress inches closer to enacting President Trump’s agenda.
Senate Republicans unveiled a new 70-page budget blueprint Wednesday that lays out a path toward implementing Mr. Trump’s border security, defense, energy and tax priorities. The resolution aims to make tax cuts that were enacted during Mr. Trump’s first term permanent while also authorizing $1.5 trillion in additional tax cuts and raising the debt ceiling by as much as $5 trillion.
The Senate cleared a procedural hurdle Thursday with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as the only Republican defection, an indication that the party has the votes needed for final approval some time this weekend.
During the vote-a-rama, Democrats can offer an unlimited number of amendments and force the majority party to cast vote after vote through the night on highly charged political issues, including Medicaid and tariffs. After the Senate exhausts all amendment votes, lawmakers will take a final vote on the budget resolution, teeing it up for a vote in the House as soon as next week.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday said it would be “a long few days for Senate Republicans.”
“You’re going to see a whole lot of amendments going after Donald Trump and the Republicans on a whole bunch of issues where they are favoring billionaires and against families,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.
The Republican blueprint is just the first step in the complicated reconciliation process, which allows Congress to bypass the 60-vote threshold typically required to advance legislation in the Senate. Taking this route allows Republicans to pass the bill without help from Democrats. Both chambers must adopt identical budget resolutions that direct committees to submit their proposed spending plans before ultimately passing a bill with Mr. Trump’s priorities. The entire process is expected to take months.
The compromise resolution comes after Republicans in the House and Senate forged ahead on their own budget blueprints earlier this year, before coming together on the path forward. Still, differences exist over where and how to make spending cuts, as leaders have opted to push some of the lingering disagreements down the line.
The Senate set relatively low minimum floors for spending cuts for a number of committees, at just a few billion dollars, while it calls for at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over a 10-year period in the House. The Senate is expected to find far more than the floor outlined in the resolution, but the figures are aimed at giving them flexibility moving forward.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended the resolution on Thursday as laying the groundwork for “transformational investment” in border security, national defense and the energy sector.
The South Dakota Republican criticized Democrats, whom he said are “losing their minds” over the measure, for claiming the tax relief is “about handouts to billionaires.” He said Democrats’ “latest hysteria” centers on an accounting tactic known as a “current policy baseline,” which makes it appear as if making the tax cuts permanent costs nothing.
“Using the current policy baseline is not some bizarre new gimmick,” Thune said, adding that “Democrats’ sudden concern for saving money and protecting the character of the Senate is touching.”
But Congress usually uses a “current law baseline” for budget measures, as required under the 1974 Budget Control Act. This takes into account the expiration of spending provisions. So, current policy would treat the extension of the Trump tax cuts, which are expiring this year, as a policy that will continue indefinitely and won’t cost any new taxpayer dollars. But the tax cuts were passed in accordance with a current law baseline, which set an expiration date. So extending the cuts would mean incurring new costs, in this case, about $4.5 trillion over the next decade.
Schumer said Thursday that “Republicans, in essence, want to pretend like their trillion dollar tax cuts are free — like magic.”
“Middle school math students would tell you this is ridiculous,” Schumer said.